This Fell Sergeant
by Alenida
Summary: I realize this has been done before, but this one-shot has been trying to get out for ages, so I thought I'd let it. Light's death and the aftermath...slightly AU.


Disclaimer: Well, I don't own Death Note. If I did, Light would have a LOT more character development, and be a lot more tormented, like Lulu in Code Geass (mmmm, Lulu). However, I don't. So. I just own the ability to write silly and not-so-silly fanfics about poor Light.

A/N: So, I've had this one-shot rattling around on my computer for quite awhile, but haven't managed to upload it. It came out of a desire to see more of two things--human emotion in Light, and a better ending to Death Note than the cheap cop-out "oh, NO human goes to heaven or hell." I got rather irritated with that. This story is what I wanted the ending to be.

**This Fell Sergeant**

_"This fell sergeant, death, is strict in his arrest."--Hamlet_

Yagami Raito was dying. His body lay limply on the steps, his arms and legs spreadeagled in an awkward position, like the famous sketch by Leonardo da Vinci. Breathing became more difficult with every passing moment. Sunlight lanced downward onto his body, but he could not feel its warmth, only the brilliant pain as it seared his eyes.

How could this have happened? How could he have miscalculated so spectacularly? The bitterest thing to swallow was that it had not been his opponent's wits which had out-done him, but merely bad luck and the insubordination of Mikami Teru. Light thought, as much as he could with his thoughts fragmenting and his breaths rasping loud and difficult through his mouth, that had it been L who had defeated him, it would not have hurt him so. L had been his equal, in a way that neither Near nor Mello could claim to be.

L had been his friend.

A chuffing laugh heaved its way through his broken lungs. His friend? He had no friends! Only allies and enemies. L had been an enemy.

But his treacherous mind took him back to the time of sweet forgetfulness, the time he had believed with all his heart that Kira deserved to be apprehended, when he had worked at L's side as a companion.

_I was a fool. _Kira's work was right. Kira was justice. War and violence had ended, _he_ had ended them. And he had striven against that? Against peace?

A whisper of the Light of that time came to him. The means were too evil. The end was worthwhile, but not at such a cost.

_I gave up my soul…and gained nothing for it._

In the end, what was it all for? To bleed to death in an abandoned building, toy of a sadistic _shinigami_? To have it all degenerate without him, back into the violence and bloody hell that had been the world? _I did so much good…_

"And so much evil, too, Light." The soft voice was familiar. Light turned his head in disbelief to see L sitting beside him on the stair, the characteristic thumb in his mouth, his huge black eyes regarding Light with solemnity.

Light responded in a voice so cracked and breathy he himself could hardly recognize it. "L…perhaps. Perhaps you were right…but I made the world peaceful. I--my world would have had no evil in it!"

"Oh, Light." The boy smiled sadly. "_You_ would be the evil in your great new world."

"L--I--" A single tear squeezed itself out of Light's eye. "Yes. I was wrong. I--somehow I do understand. The goals were so great--I believed in myself--but I was wrong…I have nothing now. My life is over." He sighed, a great gasping sigh that was half a sob. "I wish…" he was panting for breath now. "I…wish…we had…met…under other…circumstances, L. I wish…we could have…been friends…"

A translucent hand reached out to brush his face lightly. "In a way, we were."

Cold crept through Light's bones. He tried to breathe, but found, to his horror, that he no longer could. "L…I'm sorry…" he squeezed it out in an almost inarticulate whisper.

"I forgive you." The words, tinny and far away, broke apart as they reached Light's ears, and suddenly he screamed with a pain renewed, a pain that flowed through his entire body, splitting him into millions of tiny pieces.

What _was_ this pain? Wasn't he dead? What could possibly have happened? Bone fragments tore through his shoulder-blades, his body lengthened, his face seemed to split in half as exquisite agony flowed through him. Sparks flashed before his eyes, and he stood, ungainly, one leg somehow longer than the other, one foot an odd, deformed stump.

He gazed out across a ruined landscape, covered in storm clouds. Figures moved across it, deformed, lengthened crazy escapees from a fun-house mirror. Light looked down at himself in horror. His hands were long, white, twisted and gnarled—his legs misshapen and uneven. His waist was pinched as thin as an ant's, and all he wore were discarded tatters of ragged clothing.

A fluttering sound from above him caught his attention. He looked up to see a small black notebook fall to the ground at his feet. Reaching out, almost unable to balance on his mismatched limbs, which were full of a never-fading pain, he plucked it from the ground and opened it.

Words lined the inside cover. "Welcome to the land of the _shinigami_, Yagami Raito."

_No human who has used the Death Note can ever go to heaven or hell._

Wildly, desperately, mirthlessly, he began to laugh.


End file.
